Codes and Standards

Pennsylvania: Code Adoption Process Under Scrutiny

A 2011 change to Pennsylvania law made it easier to reject than to accept building code revisions, according to a story from Pittsburgh NPR station WESA ("State Lawmakers Mull Changes to How Building Code Panel Operates," by Mary Wilson and WESA staff). The result? "The state commission tasked with reviewing updates to Pennsylvania's building codes … rejected all the most recent round of code updates, citing an inability to find consensus on some and an accumulation of too many costly updates over time," the station reports.

"You just can't just say we're never going to adopt the new codes," said Democratic state Representative Bill Keller. "And that's the way it looks like it's going." But Frank Thompson, who chairs the commission, said, "I think we've seen the pendulum swing to both extremes, and what I'd like to see in 2015 is probably not adopt everything and probably adopt a lot of things."